Abstract

Little is known about when symptoms of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis first develop. We identified incident cases of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis-clinical syndrome (IPF-CS) from a UK primary care database and assessed the frequency of consultations for common symptoms in the 5 years prior to diagnosis. 1671 cases were identified with 5 years of data prior to diagnosis. Breathlessness was the most common symptom, followed by cough. Cases were significantly more likely than controls to experience these symptoms (p<0.001), even 4–5 years before diagnosis (OR for breathlessness for this period 2.79, 95% CI 2.13 to 3.65). This suggests that some patients with IPF may be symptomatic for more than 5 years before diagnosis.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Footnotes

Competing interests RBH and TMM have received grants from GSK for the PROFILE study, which aims to examine longitudinal disease behaviour and potential biomarkers in IPF. JPH has received funding from GSK for delivering a teaching session on asthma, and from Actelion to attend a two-day preceptorship on pulmonary hypertension. TH, JEG and VN have no competing interests.

Request permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.